VALLEY CENTER  The Valley Center school district property cleared this week of 1930s-era buildings might end up as athletic fields for use by students and the community, the superintendent said Tuesday.

When the district bought the surplus state property in 2011 for a little under $260,000, trustees at the time said they “wanted to do something with it for the students and community, possibly ball fields,” Superintendent Lou Obermeyer said.

All of Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District fields are used by the public on weekends, she said.

Once the 2-acre property is cleared of debris, the district will ask the community what types of fields are needed.

A doorway on one of the seven old buildings on Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District property shows rotted-out floor sheathing, an engineering consultant's report said.— KNA Consulting Engineers

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A doorway on one of the seven old buildings on Valley Center-Pauma Unified School District property shows rotted-out floor sheathing, an engineering consultant's report said.
/ KNA Consulting Engineers

Historic preservationists were reeling Monday when demolition began on the seven former Civilian Conservation Corps buildings on Cole Grade Road.

The school board voted Thursday to clear the land. Preservationists and others pleaded with the trustees to delay tearing down the buildings.

The structures opened in 1933 as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. In 1940, the site was headquarters of the 8th Regiment of California State Guard, and during World War II it housed 1,500 men going through military training. The land was transferred to the California Department of Forestry, which closed the site in 2006.

The buildings did not have official historic designation, supporter Jon Vick said. The swift demolition came as a shock, the preservationists said. After Thursday’s meeting, the interest group hired a lawyer, who asked the district to refrain from any demolition.

Razing continued Tuesday, and by about noon, six light-wood-framed structures were piles of rubble. A small cinder-block structure remained standing, and a temporary chain-link fence had been put up.

“Many Valley Center residents feel a deep sense of loss caused by this betrayal and lack of good faith by the superintendent and school board,” Vick said.

The preservationists are pursuing a lawsuit, he said.

In response to allegations that the school district and board may have violated open-meeting or environmental laws, Obermeyer said: “We went through all the proper procedures.” She declined to elaborate because of possible litigation, adding that the district has contacted legal counsel.

An owner of the demolition company said Monday that he had been hired three weeks ago.

The school district hired an engineering firm to conduct a “limited structural analysis” of the buildings. The report presented to the board Thursday by David Nelson, a structural engineer with Irvine-based KNA Consulting Engineers, described the buildings in “very poor” and “terrible condition.”

Nelson said the structures smelled strongly of mold, suffered from dry rot and termite infestation, and had buckling walls, collapsing ceilings and questionable foundations.

Vick said Tuesday that the engineer’s description “presented nothing new” and the preservationists “disputed none of it.” One of the supporters, Valley Center historian Robert Lerner, told the board last week that thousands of historically important wooden buildings in the United States have been in similar or worse condition and rehabilitated successfully.

Obermeyer pointed out Tuesday that no other group came forward when the property was for sale.

“We were the only ones who bid on it,” she said.

She said the district was interested in the property — adjacent to Valley Center Elementary and near the district headquarters — for several years before the state declared it surplus.

Obermeyer was not unsympathetic to the preservationists’ cause, but noted that the district did not buy the land for the buildings.

“I understand their request about the buildings and that they feel they have historical value,” she said. “However, I hope they understand that the land was purchased to use for educational purposes for our students and as we move forward and plan to use them as ball fields, so our students and the community will also be able to enjoy additional areas for recreation.”